


Transference

by stutter



Category: Breaking Bad, Breaking Bad RPF
Genre: Bromance, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-10
Updated: 2013-10-10
Packaged: 2017-12-28 23:46:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/998341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/stutter/pseuds/stutter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“Look, I just want to be clear. I want to help, I know you know I do, but there's only so much I think we can really get away with in the name of...scene study.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	Transference

**Author's Note:**

> From the Breaking Bad kink meme: "After filming a very emotionally demanding scene with Walt psychologically abusing Jesse deeply, Aaron is horribly distraught and can't stop going over and over how cruel Walt is and how in love Jesse is with him and no matter how hard Bryan tries to calm him down, nothing works, so he decides to do to Aaron what Aaron wishes Walt would do to Jesse (kissing, holding, being kind in general) and Aaron responds the way Jesse would (with desperate blowjobs)"
> 
> So I did that. Kind of.
> 
> Fill got away from me a little bit, as fills do. Criticism of course welcome. I'd place this somewhere earlyish in the series, maybe the filming of Season 2 or 3.

They broke like 25 minutes ago, but still, when he hears the knock on the door of his trailer, Aaron knows it’s Bryan and knows he doesn’t want to see him. He’s got a couple of knuckles between his teeth and he’s focusing on his breathing, but he can’t quell the wobble that’s settled in his chest, a talon of ache on each rib. After he got out of wardrobe he came straight back here, put his fists into his eye sockets until the tears stopped. Heated up some tea for his shredded throat, guzzled honey straight from the bear in the meantime. Checked his Twitter feed, focused on his breathing. If Bryan comes in here he’s going straight back to square one. Bryan knocks again, calls his name softly. "Yeah," he says. His voice cracks a little so it comes out half a whisper.

 

The door eases open. Bryan looks tall in the doorway, even as his body forms a lazy parenthesis curving in the light. “You got out of there fast,” he says. “Flight to catch?”

 

“Yeah, you know me. Living that jetset life.” Aaron glances up at him. He knows it’s obvious he’s been crying. He couldn’t hide it from Bryan even if it weren’t. Bryan’s eyebrows come down a fraction.

 

“What’s going on?” When he doesn’t respond, Bryan waits, then says, “Aaron?”

 

He feels his face crumple. Tears leak out of his eyes, and then a sob catches him off-guard, hitches in his throat audibly. “Jesus,” he gasps. “Fuck, I’m sorry.”

 

“Shake it off,” says Bryan, sounding rightfully bemused. “Shake it off, it’s okay. What’s going on in there?”

 

“I dunno,” Aaron mumbles, wetly. He cradles his head in his hands, trying to get back in control. “I just got - got stuck down here with him, I guess. I dunno.”

 

“The work is so good,” Bryan says. Aaron can hear his balance shift, pictures his right hand lifting toward him, unsure of the right move. “We’re doing very good work, aren’t we.” 

 

“I dunno,” Aaron repeats. “It just hit me hard this time, it’s - this is _me_ , I know this is just me.” He’s so stupid. He pushed himself hard, much harder than he should have, pressed all of Jesse’s longing and pain into the roof of his mouth and let it spread out from there until it took over his whole body, until Jesse’s desire was Aaron’s and now looking at Bryan hurts so much, pummels him senseless. The scene’s going to be beautiful, yeah, but Aaron’s got that broken-vase feeling, that fresh-scab feeling, that something’s been changed that can’t be unmade.

 

“That’s good writing, that’s good work,” Bryan reminds him gently, ever the teacher. He has no idea what it does to him, what it means.

 

“No, I know. I know the work’s good, I know, it’s just -” There’s no way to explain it without sounding small and so _green_. He cranks a fistful of t-shirt over his sternum, demonstrating. “He’s just _right here,_ and he wants _so much_ \- ”

 

Footsteps and then weight beside him. “C’mere,” says Bryan. “Come on over here, now -”

 

Aaron recoils like he’s been shocked, pushes himself to the edge of the couch. Bryan puts his hands up, cedes power to him. His eyes are mild and not without worry. It makes Aaron feel a hundred times worse. “I don’t know if it’s good for you to touch me right now, man,” he says, and his eyes well up again and his throat gets tight. “It’s just a lot to carry - I don’t trust myself.”

 

“What don’t you trust?” prompts Bryan. “I don’t want to make this worse, I just don’t quite - what precisely don’t you trust?”

 

Aaron shakes his head, gives him a helpless little saltwater smile. Bryan raises an eyebrow. Inside of Aaron, Jesse’s still howling, snapping down over Aaron’s reality like a light filter locking into place on set. He grits his teeth against all that wild need.

 

Bryan rises and goes to Aaron’s dressing table, puts his abandoned tea in the microwave and sets it humming. “It’s a real dark magic at times, I know,” he says, watching it spin. Aaron knows the set of Bryan’s hands clasped behind his back better than he knows his own brain right now. “I’ve been there. We’ve all been there at one time or another. These beautiful people fit right over the skin sometimes, I know it too.” He turns, smiles at Aaron. “What an honor, isn’t it? To tell their stories?” Aaron nods, chewing on his thumb. “And I’m the lucky sonofabitch who gets to do it with you.”

 

“Stop,” says Aaron, laughing a little.

 

“It’s true,” says Bryan. Aaron smiles at him, but he can still feel his hands trembling. Bryan turns back to watch the mug revolving slowly. “Oh, don’t mention it,” he says over his shoulder. “You’re _welcome_ , you know, for the privilege of doing this alongside one of the modern _masters_.”

 

"Yeah, I'm the luckiest guy in the world," Aaron starts to say, but it turns into a hiccup at the end of the sentence. He ducks his head. The microwave shrills once. Bryan retrieves the tea and brings it to the couch. “You need to drink something, before you dehydrate yourself, and then take a long shower. You’ll be back at a hundred in no time. I know you, Aaron.” He holds the tea out to him, and Aaron hardly even thinks about it before he leans forward, rests his forehead on the fabric of Bryan’s thigh. Bryan makes a small, concerned noise like a kindly old cartoon hound. Even this minor contact, hardly more intimate than a handshake between them at this point, sets a thrum in Aaron's limbs. He squeezes his eyes shut.

 

“I can’t shake him,” he frets. “I can’t shake it off. And I can’t stop _fucking_ crying. It’s just not - I can’t, can’t reconcile -” His voice is rising, he knows he’s starting to seem hysterical, but Jesses closes in, raging.

 

“You can _use_ that, Aaron, that’s what it’s there for,” says Bryan firmly, the arc of his hand into his fist resolutely directorial. Aaron is so beyond notes. He might not have done many goddamn trust falls in a classroom but he’s been at this shit some ten years long enough to know this is not normal.

 

“There’s too _much_ ,” he says, voice hitching again. He watches a teardrop splash onto the floor between his bare feet and curls in his toes. “I know I did this to - to myself, but it's never happened like this, and he's so alone -"

 

“You don’t have to do it alone.” Aaron looks up at him.

 

“Bryan -”

 

“I’m serious. What do you need? Let’s figure this out, just the two of us.” Bryan settles beside him on the couch again. Aaron sniffles.

 

“Yeah?” he asks hoarsely.

 

“Yeah, of course. Just you and me, okay?” A big, warm hand finds the back of his head and pushes their foreheads together. “Let’s get you through this thing.”

 

Aaron looks at him, sees in micro-closeup the wrinkles of Bryan’s face, the blue-green of his eyes. On set, Aaron had willed himself to transform him into everyone who’d ever pushed him away or wouldn’t listen, and now the dissonance sets his ears ringing. Something floats up to the surface of him and he lets it glide through. “Nobody,” he whispers, “is good to me like you are.”

 

Bryan’s laugh is not mean, considering how it could be. “I’ve seen how very good to you a certain set of young ladies are, I think there’s some ring of untruth about that claim -”

 

“Nobody loves me like you do,” Aaron presses on, choking up again. “And you don’t _even_ , like - like -”

 

“Of course I do,” Bryan says gently. “Of course I - you know I love you. You must know that.” He reaches up, strokes Aaron’s cheekbone with his thumb, and before he can even check his own muscles, Aaron turns his face to the side and opens his mouth into a kiss in the palm of Bryan’s hand.

 

Bryan goes still, more inquisitive than alarmed, like he's birdwatching or tracking a deer. “Aaron,” he says quietly.

 

Mortified, Aaron shrinks backwards, his head in his hands again. “I’m sorry. I’m sorry. _Fuck_.”

 

“Is this you, now?” asks Bryan calmly, which is insane, because Aaron feels like his eyeballs are going to burn out of his face. “Is this Aaron, or…?”

 

“To be honest, I’ve got zero concept of that right now,” Aaron says, a little wildly. “I’m so sorry, Jesus, I just kind of -”

 

He looks up and starts when he realizes Bryan has closed the distance between them on the couch. He takes Aaron’s face in his hands and kisses his right temple, wraps him up tight in a hug. Aaron sinks into him, and inside of him, desire Dopplers out from Jesse, so much love he’s never had that he wants like oxygen. The thunder of pain in his chest lessens and roars all at once. “You’re okay,” Bryan is murmuring, and he kisses the side of Aaron’s face. When Aaron catches Bryan’s mouth with his own, it’s nothing, it’s like Bryan’s been expecting it ever since he walked in.

 

Bryan stripes Aaron’s sides with his fingers, a gentle pressure, but it doesn’t seem like he’s trying to pull away. It’s been a long time since Aaron kissed somebody with a beard, he realizes distantly. Bryan’s exhale is soft on his cheek. Aaron breaks the kiss, hums out a breath against Bryan’s mouth. Bryan’s eyes are open, staring hard into him, lips slightly parted. Aaron gives him a space to speak, but when he doesn’t, he can’t seem to stop himself from leaning in again for another kiss.

 

Bryan guides him a little, hands framing Aaron’s face one minute and flitting down to his neck, to his waist the next. Considering the consequences - unequivocally dire - and the speed of his pulse - somewhere past "hummingbird" - the whole thing feels somehow languid, warm and gentle, as if totally destroying a beautiful professional relationship is just a _thing to do_. The part of Aaron that is Jesse keeps saying "not enough,” and Aaron knows that he did this to himself somehow, that it’s not like Vince put this in the text, but he can’t undo it now. It’s as much a fact as his eye color or the size of his shoes. He melts forward, wraps himself into Bryan's arms. Bryan is open, calm, letting him. When Aaron is finally able to pry himself away, Bryan kisses his hair. Aaron is lost on this. "I'm sorry," he offers limply.

 

"Are you?" asks Bryan. Aaron goes red. "No, I'm asking you, genuinely - I'm not trying to be cute about it. Are you sorry? Or was it good, did it help you?" Aaron looks at his hands, then back up to Bryan.

  
“Saying ‘both’ seems like the wrong move right now, but it's true,” he explains.

 

“Look, I just want to be clear. I want to help, I know you know I do, but there's only so much I think we can really get away with in the name of...scene study.”

 

"It does help," concedes Aaron quickly. "It...clarifies.”

 

"Well, good. Excellent. I want to help _clarify_. Any time I kiss a person, the truest wish of my heart is to hear them say, ‘That clarifies things,’" Bryan deadpans. Aaron realizes Bryan's thumb is still stroking his wrist, absently, an unconscious impulse. When Aaron doesn’t respond beyond a little lost huff of a laugh, Bryan murmurs, “I’m teasing you.”

 

“Well, I guess we should stop, then,” says Aaron slowly, ears burning.

 

“I guess we should.” Bryan doesn’t move away, though, doesn’t stop touching him. In the steady pressure of his touch during the silence, it occurs to Aaron that for the first time he can remember, he has no idea what Bryan is thinking at all. When he looks up into Bryan’s face - the slight arch of his eyebrow, the tiny crescent of smirk - he decides to stop speculating. Fuck it, he thinks, and it feels good to kiss him again, the relief almost sickening, sobering like a blast of cold air. This time Bryan’s kissing back, not just letting Aaron figure out what he needs but showing him, in return, taking some control, grabbing handfuls of his shirt to pull him close, which turns out to light Aaron up more than he’d readily admit. Whether it’s his impulse or Jesse’s, he doesn’t know, but he’s pulling off breathlessly and saying, “I want -”

 

The sentence completes itself in so many different ways that he has to stop himself, bites his lips together.

 

"What?" presses Bryan. "What do you want?"

 

"I. I want to - to thank you, I guess, is all," says Aaron slowly, but they both hear the lie.

 

"Don't mention it," says Bryan, eyes steady on him.

 

Aaron nods. “Thanks,” he says quietly.

 

“ _Aaron_ ,” says Bryan as Aaron slips off the couch, gets on his knees.

 

“Thank you,” he says again, making eye contact with Bryan for a few long seconds before going for his belt.

 

Bryan clamps a hand over Aaron’s shoulder. “What are you doing.”

 

“Please let me,” says Aaron quietly, “I want to - ”

 

“No you don’t,” says Bryan, pushing him back. “No, you - not like - we both know you’re not entirely yourself in this moment. Don’t we? We both know this isn’t _just_ coming from you.”

 

“I _don’t_ know,” Aaron says, making a fist. Bryan towers over him from this angle. Aaron’s ears are burning and ringing but Jesse still _wants_ , wants to prove his love, wants to tether this other body here however he can. “I can’t tell the difference,” he admits slowly.

 

“I can,” says Bryan. “I know that if we do this, right now, in this way, I’ll be taking advantage of you in a place that’s fragile and it might be good for the _work_ , but it is not going to be good for _you_ , as a person separate from this, and I have no intention of crossing that line or letting you use me as a conduit to cross it.”

 

“I’m not trying to use you,” says Aaron, visoring his face with his hands. He lets Bryan’s words sink into him, shame dragging behind them like a veil and settling over him. It clears his head, finally lets him see himself from the outside, lost and teary-eyed on his knees in front of a very worried-looking man a couple of decades his senior. He snorts out a laugh, broken. “Oh, god, Bryan,” he says.

 

Bryan laughs a little, too, relieved, Aaron’s sure. “Hey,” he says. “C’mere. Seriously.”

 

“Ugh, no,” says Aaron, turning away. “There aren’t even words for how sorry I am for dragging you into this.”

 

“Well, it could be a lot worse for me,” says Bryan lightly. He reaches down, grabs hold of Aaron’s arms and pulls him up onto the couch. Aaron goes, hiding his face in his hands. “I just want you doing - whatever it is that you choose to do because _you_ want to.” Aaron doesn’t say anything, doesn’t know how to explain. Bryan elbows him, then does it again until Aaron raises his face slowly from his palms to look at him. For some insane reason, Bryan is kind of smiling. “Because _you_ choose to do it, and not because you’re projecting _your_ life into something else. I need you to know I’m not rejecting _you_. Okay?” Aaron just stares at him. Bryan rolls his eyes. “Listen, I might be old, but I’m not an idiot,” he says. Then he leans in and kisses Aaron, once, on the corner of his mouth.

 

 _Floored_ doesn’t begin to cover where Aaron’s at right now. Mindfucked into paralysis, maybe. “Are you playing with me?” he asks dumbly.

 

Bryan’s eyes get a little wide. “Now I’m afraid _I’ve_ horribly misread this situation,” he says, starting to withdraw. "I should - look, if you need me, I'll be in my trailer, licking my wounds and hiring a hitman to concuss you so we can both forget this ever happened -"

 

Aaron grabs his wrist. "No. Wait. Dude. You _want_ this?" he manages to say.

 

"Don't _you_?" Bryan demands. "Or is this really all about the _Method_ , for god's sake?"

 

The absurdity of the whole situation hits Aaron, and then the truth follows it. The gunshot of his laughter probably startles dozens of birds and geckoes out of hiding in the surrounding area. Bryan, maddening inscrutable Bryan, has once again read Aaron like a teenager’s diary, pages and pages before Aaron got to the end. The ache, the longing, how easily it all fit down over him. The answer clicks into place. "Oh my god," Aaron says, flushing magenta. "You are unreal, you keen old fuck." He throws himself into Bryan's lap with maybe an embarrassment of enthusiasm and kisses him, hard.

 

Bryan catches and holds him there, exhaling heavily again. “Christ, what a relief,” he says. “My instincts are generally pretty solid, but that - that would have been -!”

 

“I just don’t know what’s gotten into me,” Aaron says. “I’m not usually such a little, like, butterfly about what’s going on with me, y’know? I really thought it was all…”

 

“Character, I hear you. Look, I told you, we’ve all been there.” Bryan kisses Aaron’s hair again. “You can _thank me_ later," he quips, grinning obscenely. “I think I remember you were gonna do that?”

 

"Oh my god," says Aaron, pulling his shirt up to hide his face. “I’m so far beyond - I’m gonna sink through the floor to China. Why do you _even like me_.”

 

“Evolution. You’re easy prey. Your scrawny build marks you as the weakest in the pack.” Aaron chuckles. Bryan thinks some more. “My enormous ego?” he suggests. “You make me feel young again? You’ve got a purdy mouth?”

 

“I really hate you a lot, actually,” says Aaron, but when Bryan bites down on his earlobe, he just laughs harder and curls in close. Jesse doesn’t have a goddamn thing to say about it, because he’s gone.


End file.
